According to the Biograph, December 1881, Eustace Clare Grenville Murray "married Clara, the only daughter and heiress of Count Reickhart Usedom; and Anne, daughter of Colonel Sholto Douglas d'Archambault". Other references mention only one marriage of Murray's—that to a "French lady" (F.M. Thomas, comp. and ed., Fifty Years of Fleet Street, p. 212) or to a "Spanish lady" (Dictionary of National Biography) or to a "lady with a Spanish titIe" ("Anecdotal Photographs", Truth, December 29 1881), whose title—de Rethel d'Aragon—Murray assumed on his marrying her, apparently some time after his taking up residence in Paris in 1869. It is "Clara Comitissa de Rethel d' Aragon" whose name appears as Murray's widow on his tomb in the Passy cemetery (Richard Bentley and Son, List of the Principal Publications Issued ... during the Year 1853). Obviously, the order in which the two ladies are named in the Biograph should be reversed; and, if the Biograph article is correct in the matter of names (it is incorrect in some other matters), Murray's first wife—the Mrs. Grenville Murray (Mrs. Murray) of the Office Book entries—was Anne d' Archambault. The date of the first marriage was apparently 1843. In September 1853, from Prince's Island (Sea of Marmara), Murray dedicated Doĭne, or, The National Songs and Legends of Roumania "to her who has been for ten years the companion of my studies; ... who has been the light of my hearth and the pride of my heart—the bride of my youth, the friend of my manhood ...". Children born of the marriage of whom there is record were Reginald (b. ca. 1846) and Douglas (b. 1848) (Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886 (1888); Joseph Foster, Men-at-the-Bar: A Biographical Hand-list of the Various Inns of Court (1885)).

During 1852-1854, payment for some fifteen of Murray's H.W. contributions is recorded in the Office Book as made to "Mrs. M." or to "Mrs. Murray".

Among Mrs. Murray's other writings were "Durkhein: A Tale of the Haardt", Ladies' Companion, December 1852; and "The Flower of Liege", Keepsake, 1854.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.